Great Tech Gift Ideas for Dad!!!

Father's Day is June 20th.

Here is a list of great gifts for the Techie Dad in your family. 

The Roku Player

Instantly stream free and premium content, including Netflix Movies, Amazon On Demand Movies and Major League Baseball over your wireless home network straight to your TV.

The Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote Control

Program this remote control with a web interface by connecting it to your computer via a USB cable. Quite possibly the LAST universal remote control Dad will ever have to use.

iPod Touch

Download your favorite music, movies and other content for enjoyment anytime.

Access the Web, your email, calendar and over a million other apps in the Apple iTunes Store via a wifi connection. 

The Amazon Kindle

If Dad is an avid book reader, He's got to have a Kindle. He can carry thousands of books in one device. Purchase of a Kindle includes lifetime global wireless connection to access the Kindle Book Store anywhere, Anytime.

Coleman Cordless Screwdriver

If Dad is a Handyman, he's got to have this in his tool bag. Flashcell technology recharges the battery to full strength in 90 seconds. 

Click Free Automatic Backup Hard Drive

Backup multiple computers with one Clickfree portable backup drive!

Help Dad make sure to never lose his precious memories and other important files with this truly Plug-n-Play automatic backup hard drive.

Logitech Squeezebox Internet Radio

Listen to free Internet radio stations, online music services such as Pandora, and your personal iTunes collection in minutes Connects easily to MP3 players and your home network via Wi-Fi.

There Are No More Excuses!!!

There are two types of hard drives. When I say ‘two types’, I do not mean Desktop Drives and Laptop Drives, or 7200 RPM and 5400 RPM, or IDE and SATA, or even mechanical and solid state drives.

When I say there are two types of hard drives, I am referring to:

• Those that have failed and
• Those that will!!!

All hard drives WILL fail.

The hard drive is the most volatile and fragile component in your computer. It is really the only moving part in your machine that can wear out. Sure, there are fans, and optical drives that have some moving parts, but when those parts fail, you simply replace them and move on. The hard drive is where you store all of your data… Your documents, your precious family digital pictures, your digital music library and other very important and irreplaceable files can all be lost in an instant when your hard drive fails.

Depending on the type of failure, you may get lucky and get a second chance at pulling the data off of the drive, but all too often, getting your files back involves sending your drive off to a Data Recovery Specialist, the cost of which starts at $1000.00 and quickly increases depending on the size of your drive and the amount of work required to extract your data.

There is only one way to avoid the panic that ensues when you go to turn on your hard drive and get the dreaded ‘Boot Device Not Found’ error message.

BACKUP!!!

The 3, 2, 1 Rule

Industry experts recommend the 3, 2, 1 rule when it comes to backup…

3 – Keep at least 3 copies of any file that is important to you
• Experts suggest that if you do not have at least 3 copies of a file, then you do not have that file at all. There are many factors that can render a file unusable from file corruption to user error and accidental deletion.

2 – Use at least 2 different types of media to store your files on
• No one can predict the future of technology. What is a common media for backup today may become obsolete tomorrow. For instance, floppy disks were a popular media for backing up files 10 years ago, but just try to find a computer on the market today that has a floppy drive built in. Same with Zip Disks and Tape drives. It’s recommended to use multiple types of media such as CD/DVD’s , external hard drives and cloud (online) backup.

1 – In more than 1 location
• At the very least, you should have a local backup, usually with the use of an external hard drive or use of CD/DVD’s or USB Thumb drives. Keeping these backups local makes it quick and easy to retrieve files when something goes wrong. But what if the worst happens. A fire, flood or natural disaster destroys your home. When these disasters happen, they usually destroy your computer and your backups at the same time. So it is also great practice to take one of your ‘3’ copies offsite. Take it to work, mail it to a friend or family member or use one of the many cloud backup services available on the internet.

There are so many ways to backup your data on the market today, many of which are extremely simple to use, that there are no more excuses. Everybody should be backing up there data. I will talk about two methods that are inexpensive and so easy, any computer user can use.

Local Backup

External hard drives are becoming so inexpensive that they are the most cost effective method of backing up your files. There are two general sizes available,

• 2.5” - also referred to as ‘Portable’. These drives generally do not require an additional power cord as they are powered by plugging them into the USB port on your computer. This makes it much easier to move the drive about to backup multiple computers in your home or network. It also makes it easy to store it in an offsite location, such as a Bank Safe Deposit Box.

• 3.5” - also referred to as ‘Desktop Drives’. These drives are quite a bit larger and do require an additional power cord to be plugged in. These come in much larger capacity sizes and are generally meant to be permanently placed on your desk for uninterrupted scheduled backups.

• Also available are USB Thumb drives, also referred to as jump drives, or flash drives. These are great for portability if you use certain files on multiple computers or want to share files with family members or co-workers. They are not recommended for backup purposes, as they are very small and easy to misplace or lose. They are also much more expensive, relatively speaking, than the external hard drives mentioned earlier.

One of the simplest external hard drives available for backing up your files is the ClickFree Backup Drives. Simply plug the drive in the USB port and software will automatically run, searching your computer for files that will be backed up. It will automatically search out documents, photos, quicken files, music and other media, plus you can also manually select other files to back up. They come in both the portable and desktop variety as mentioned above, as well as a converter cable you can use with an external hard drive you already have, and smaller solid state devices you can carry in your wallet. You can fine ClickFree devices at a discount at Amazon.com

Cloud (Online) Backup

There are quite a few online services that offer cloud storage. Many will offer free service for a limited amount of storage and then charge a monthly/yearly fee for more space, up to unlimited.

• Carbonite – http://www.carbonite.com/ - Probably one of the most common online backup services. At 54.95 per year, per computer for an unlimited amount of storage space, it installs a small program on your computer which searches your system for files to be backed up, then sends it up to their servers for storage and, if needed, later retrieval. The program also places a small colored dot next to the files indicating whether the file has been backed up or is scheduled to be backed up.

• Mozy – http://www.mozy.com/ – Essentially the same as Carbonite, but they do offer a free account with up to 2GB of storage, or unlimited at $4.95/month or $54.45/year giving 1 free month.

• Jungle Disk – http://www.jungledisk.com/ – Starting at just $2/month, maybe the most flexible solution. Jungle Disk charges you by the amount of space you use, so if you only have a few gigabytes of files to back up, Jungle Disk may be for you.

Replace Your Drives

In addition, every computer should have the hard drive replaced once every 3-4 years, especially notebook hard drives. The older a drive gets the more likely it is facing failure, not to mention decreased performance causing your computer to seem slower over time, and corruption of files. Any computer repair service can safely move your system over to a new drive in a matter of a couple of hours.

Google recently conducted a study on the life of hard drives used in their servers. The results are rather stunning. For example, in drives older than 2 years, Google reports seeing about a 7% failure rate per year.

Put another way, one out of every 14 drives will fail within a year. And the failure rates rise sharply after that.

Many computer users don’t get the ‘Backup Religion’ until a hard drive failure happens to them and they are faced with the cost of Data Recovery, or the complete loss of everything
they had on their computer.

Don’t let it happen to you. No matter how you accomplish it, just get it done. Backing up has been made so much easier for the user, there really are no more excuses.

Tech Gadget - NETGEAR Powerline AV Ethernet Adapter

NETGEAR Powerline AV Ethernet Adapter

So, you have added a new computer to your home network, but you want to put it in a room other than where your internet connection and router are located, such as the kids room, on the other side of the house.

One possible solution is to crawl through your attic (or hire someone to do the dirty work) and drop an ethernet cable down the wall in the kids room. This is a lot of work and, have you been in your attic in the heat of our Florida summers? Not fun!!!!

Another solution is to install a wireless card in the new computer and access the network over Wifi. Depending on the distance between the router and the kids room and how many walls are in between the two points, your signal strength may not be very good which would result in frustratingly slow network speeds.
A new device is on the market and it works, well... amazingly well. And best of all, takes a maximum of 10 minutes to set up.

The NETGEAR Powerline AV Ethernet Adapter Kit comes complete with two power outlet adapters and one ethernet cable (You will need to supply an additional ethernet cable). To install, simply plug one unit into a wall outlet near your router (must be a wall outlet, power strips will not work), connect the ethernet cable from the adapter to an open port on your router, plug the second adapter into a wall outlet near the new computer and connect an ethernet cable from that adapter to the computer.

DONE!!!!

If you wish to add a connection in yet another location in your home, you simply purchase an additional adapter, plug it in and you are on your way.

No fuss, no muss, and best of all, no software to install. The network signal is transfered at up to 200Mbps through the powerlines in your home. This is truly a time and frustration saving gadget that keeps your family connected.

Happy Networking!!!

Windows Tip - Start Menu Search

Start Menu Search
Works with Windows Vista and Windows 7

In past versions of Windows, one of the biggest time wasting tasks a PC user faced was searching for a document, picture, song or application that you know is on your computer, but you just can’t remember where you saved it on your hard drive.

Well, that has all changed!!!

One of the most useful yet under-utilized time saving features introduced in Windows Vista, and then carried forward and improved in Windows 7, is Start Menu Search.

Just click the Start Button and start typing the name of the file, document or application you are looking for and within seconds, it will show up in the search results.

Alternatively, you can just hit the Windows key on your keyboard to shave another second off of your search time.

By default, Windows indexes the program files folder and your Documents folder. If you have other data elsewhere on your computer, such as a separate partition or hard drive, individual folders, or even over your network, you can change the settings to have Windows index those files as well. Simply click the Start Button and type ‘Index’ and the first result that comes up should be ‘Indexing Options’.

If the file you were searching for is the first file listed in the search results, simply hit your Enter key to open that file or application.

What If...?
What to do when something goes wrong?

One of the most prevalent forms of malware on the internet is the ‘Fake Anti-Virus’ ads (example shown below) that can pop up while you are surfing around the internet.

Unfortunately, this can happen even at legitimate websites.

If you should see pop-up windows warning you that your computer is infected, saying ‘Click Here’ to remove this threat or some other message, at this point, it is only a scary pop-up. DO NOT CLICK any part of your screen as it may trigger a virus installation. The best thing you can do is to immediately shut down your computer by holding down the power button on your computer or laptop case for 4-5 seconds until it powers off. Restart your computer and have your antivirus program run a complete system scan before resuming your regular internet use.

If you feel your computer has been compromised, and your antivirus did not clean your system or is not working at all, please call for help. Attempting to get the answers and solutions on the internet may lead you into more trouble and cause serious and/or permanent damage to your system, including loss of your data.

2009...A Banner Year for Malware

It is the number one reason computer users call me for Tech Support. Their computer has been infiltrated by Malware, and naturally, no one in the household knows how it happened. Well, there is actually good reason for that.

The Bad News…

A recent report released by Panda Security (http://tinyurl.com/panda2009report) states that their research identified 25 million new strains of malware in 2009, compared to a combined total of 15 million throughout the company’s 20 year history.

Let me repeat that...

25 Million NEW strains of malware in just ONE YEAR, compared to 15 million over the previous 20 year period combined.

Folks, that is an average of over 68,000 new malicious files identified EVERY DAY.

The report estimates that 66% of malicious activity were of the Banker Trojan variety, followed by fake antivirus programs (an example shown at left), also referred to as Rogueware or Scareware.Let me repeat that…

Another shocking statistic reported was with regards to email spam. Some 92% of all email traffic was identified as spam or junk email. This means that 8 out of every 100 emails you may receive is valid email you would actually want to read.

Spam email is often the way malicious activity starts on a users computer. Phishing attacks (emails that lead a user to false log-in pages for banks and other services for the purpose of stealing your log-in credentials), malicious embedded links and malicious email attachments are the most threatening types of spam.

Other malware distribution channels include social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Myspace) Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing sites (Limewire, Frostwire, Kazaa, Cabos, Bit Torrent) and SEO attacks (changing search engine result links to re-direct users to malware laden sites)

Not surprisingly, the report predicts the amount of malicious software in circulation to increase in 2010, including designing new attacks for Windows 7, Macintosh and even cell phones.

The Good News…

Believe it or not, it is actually very easy to keep your computer safe from these attacks. It just requires some light regular maintenance and some common sense internet use. Follow these steps easy steps and you will likely never need to call me with a virus infection.

Keep Your Software Up To Date – Enable Windows Updates and set it to update automatically. Microsoft sends out updates for Windows on the second Tuesday of every month, and will send out critical security patches out of cycle if they feel it is important enough. These updates patch security vulnerabilities within the operating system that malware writers try to exploit. Every day that your computer goes on to the internet without these updates makes your system more vulnerable to malicious attack.

This also goes for any other software that runs on your computer, the most important being those titles that are found on just about every computer on the internet. These include Adobe’s Reader and Flash Player (http://www.adobe.com/) and Sun’s Java (http://www.java.com/). To check your entire computer for vulnerable software that needs to be updated, download and run the Secunia Personal Software Inspector (http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/). When your computer tells you there are updates ready to be installed, take five to ten minutes to download and install the updates. This is the most important thing you can do to help keep yourself safe on the internet.

Put up your Firewall – Every computer connected to the internet via a Broadband Service (Cable Modem, DSL, Fios, Satellite) should be connected through a router, even if you only have one computer. A router has a built in hardware firewall which blocks wandering internet worms. Operating systems (Windows, Macintosh, Linux) also have a built in software firewall which should always be turned on. Many Security Suites available today include a built in firewall as well which would take the place of the Windows built in firewall. A computer connected to the internet that does not have any kind of active firewall will be infected by a worm within a matter of minutes, even if you are not activley surfing the internet.

Use Antivirus/Antispyware Software – There are many available antivirus products on the market today, many of which are free for home users. While I agree a free product is better than not having anything at all, the products that charge an annual fee have more features and are, in my opinion, far superior protection.As mentioned earlier, there is an estimated 68,000 new malware threats every day. Make sure your antivirus database is updated at least daily, if not multiple times a day, and that you download the latest version of the software when it becomes available.

Limit Yourself – Windows Vista and Windows 7 users should do their daily computing as a ‘Standard User’, instead of 'Administrator'. The ‘User Account Control (UAC)' feature was the main reason for all of the complaints surrounding Windows Vista when it was first released, mainly because it was a new way of using your computer that was not understood by the general home computer user.

The first account created on your new computer will be the Administrator, for which you should set a password and should not be used for general everyday use. Then everyone else who uses the computer should do so under a separate ‘Standard User’ account. You can password protect these accounts to restrict access by other users.With this feature put in place, if you double-click an ‘MP3’ file expecting to hear music, and the UAC pops up prompting for the administrator password, you have likely just stopped a virus from being installed on your system.This is an extremely powerful tool that prevents any software from being installed without the administrator password being entered to authorize the installation.

Just Say NO to Clicking – The most common method for malware to open the door to your computer is by getting you to click a malicious link that takes you somewhere other than where you thought you would be going. NEVER click on unsolicited attachments or links in email, in a chat session or on social networking sites, unless you know exactly what the link is for, who it came from and were expecting it. Even if the link came in a message (email or instant message) from ‘someone you know’, if you were not expecting it, DO NOT CLICK IT. It is a trivial process to hide the real destination behind a seemingly innocuous web link.

Do not use Peer to Peer Sharing Services – Downloading ‘Free’ (pirated) software, music, videos and other files through programs such as Limewire, Frostwire, Kazaa, Cabos, and Bit Torrent clients is one of the fastest methods to infecting your computer. You may think you are downloading your favorite song, when in fact, you may be downloading a virus that has been disguised with the title of the song. Download your favorite media files through legitimate sites such as Apple iTunes (http://www.itunes.com/), Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/).

When it comes right down to it, a little common sense will take you a long way. You can be the safest driver in the world, drive the safest car on the road, and have the best auto insurance available, yet none of these will stop you from driving your car into that tree in front of you if you decide to steer your car directly at it. If you practice these important internet safety tips, your computer will run virus free for many years.